VivaZome is delighted to announce a suite of positive changes to the company’s board and executive team. Xenia Sango has been promoted to CEO and Managing Director, David Haylock has been appointed as Chief Scientific Officer. and Dr Anthony Filippis has joined the Board as Non-Executive Director. See attached release here (The photo shows Xenia and David in attendance at ISEV 2023 earlier this year)
VivaZome is delighted that Associate Professor Riccardo Natoli from Australian National University (ANU) will be doing an Industry placement with VivaZome in the second half of this year. This placement is supported by the Bridge and BridgeTech Industry Fellowships Program, which is part of MTPConnect’s $32 million REDI initiative. Riccardo’s application was selected from a very competitive pool of applicants, based on his experience, project goals, strength of industry partnership and potential impact.
Riccardo is the Head of the Clear Vision Research Lab, at the John Curtin School of Medical Research and ANU Medical School, with his team focused on finding novel diagnostics and treatment options for Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD), using miRNA and extracellular vesicles (EVs). AMD is the most common cause of blindness in Australia.
ANU is a project partner in VivaZome’s current CRC-P project and AMD is one of VivaZome’s key clinical targets. Riccardo’s fellowship at VivaZome will build on his existing industry interactions and experience AND assist VivaZome to accelerate its development of new EV-based therapies for retinal disease.
VivaZome is delighted to announce that two posters with new mice data highlighting the functional potential of extracellular vesicles (“EVs”) will be presented at the annual meeting of the International Society of Extracellular Vesicles (“ISEV”) held on 17-21 May 2023 in Seattle, USA.
The poster, “Local administration of extracellular vesicles from bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells restores homeostatic communication pathways and slows the progression of retinal degeneration” (Wooff et al) is co-authored by scientists from Australian National University (ANU) and VivaZome. The second poster, “Bioengineering exosomes to enhance brain targeting in a mouse traumatic brain injury model” (Chen et al), is co-authored by scientists from The University of Queensland (UQ) and VivaZome.
Dr David Haylock, CEO of VivaZome, said: “We are delighted to be working with world-leading scientists at ANU and UQ as we jointly strive to develop new customised EV-based approaches to treat retinal disease and brain injury”.
See the VivaZome – ANU poster here. See the VivaZome – UQ poster here. Read the full media release here
VivaZome is delighted to have been awarded an Australian Government Round 13 CRC-P grant of $3.0m in support of the 3-year project “Customised exosomes – the future of regenerative medicine”. Joining VivaZome in the CRC-P are five exceptional Australian project partners – La Trobe University, The University of Queensland, Australian National University, Cytiva and SeerPharma. Read the press release here.
VivaZome’s Head of Regulatory and Clinical, Ms. Xenia Sango, is an invited speaker at the 5th Conference of the Australia and New Zealand Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ANZSEV) to be held in Gold Coast, Queensland on 9-11 November 2022. Xenia’s will present “Regulatory Affairs Relating to EV-based Therapeutics”. In addition, VivaZome’s CEO, Dr. David Haylock, and Ms. Sango will be part of an Expert Panel Discussion on “How to go Commercial”. Further, Dr Haylock and VivaZome Senior Scientist, Dr Smriti Krishna, are co-authors of the poster “Bioengineering exosomes to enhance brain targeting in a mouse traumatic brain injury model” by Dr. Min Chen and colleagues from the University of Queensland. Read more at: VivaZome Press Release 3 November 2022
VivaZome Therapeutics Pty Ltd has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with The University of Queensland (UQ) focussing on improved therapies for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and post-traumatic epileptogenesis (PTE). TBI afflicts close to 69 million people globally. Under the MoU, VivaZome will collaborate with Professor David Reutens – Director of the Centre for Advanced Imaging (CAI) at UQ – and his colleagues to investigate exosomes for the treatment of TBI and PTE.
Click here to read more
VivaZome Therapeutics has been awarded the top prize in the 2022 Cytiva BioChallenge for the Australia and NewZealand region. The prize, valued at approximately AUD $200,000, will further assist VivaZome in its quest to develop off-the-shelf regenerative medicines. Part of Cytiva’s BioChallenge global series, the inaugural challenge for the ANZ region received 32 applications from various universities and companies. See more here
VivaZome Therapeutics Pty Ltd is delighted to be collaborating with researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) and other expert groups focussing on improved therapies for age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The project entitled “The use of extracellular vesicles (EVs) for therapeutic RNA delivery as a novel treatment for retinal degenerations” is supported by a grant from ANU under its Research Support Program 2022, and includes researchers from the ANU School of Medicine and Psychology, VivaZome, Canberra Health Services, Sydney University, Save Sight Institute, La Trobe University and Flinders University. See more here
ReNerve and VivaZome have entered a collaboration to combine their leading scaffold and exosome technologies, skills and experience to explore new solutions for the repair of spinal cord injuries. The two companies will work together to explore the potential of combining the ReNerve NervAlign® nerve cuff with VivaZome’s proprietary exosomes to enhance nerve regrowth in damaged spinal cords. The NervAlign® nerve cuff has potential to facilitate localised delivery of regenerative factors to damaged nerves whilst protecting the healing process, while the VivaZome exosomes have potential to stimulate the regeneration of functional neural tissue and reduce inflammation. Read more at http://vivazome.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=3028&action=edit
Viva Zome CEO David Haylock is presenting at the Annual Conference of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy on 13 May 2021 in an Industrial Symposium sponsored by Pall Corporation. His presentation is entitled “Exosome manufacture in a fixed-bed bioreactor, and overcoming production challenges” Read more at http://vivazome.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/VivaZome-ASGCT-release-11-May-2021.pdf